Machiavelli, Volume I eBook

COSIMO. Yet ther hath ben seen many tounes that
have ben sacked within this xxv. yeres, and lost their
dominions, whose insample, ought to teache other how
to live, and to take again some of those old orders.

FABRICIO. You saie true: but if you note
what tounes have gone to sacke, you shall not finde
that thei have been the heddes of states, but of the
members; as was seen sacked Tortona, and not Milaine:
Capua, and not Napelles, Brescia, and not Venice,
Ravenna, and not Roome: the whiche insamples
maketh those that governe, not to chaunge their purposes,
but rather maketh them to stande more in their opinion,
to be able to redeme again all thynges with taskes,
and for this, thei will not submit theim selves to
the troubles of thexercises of warre, semyng unto them
partly not necessarie, partly, an intrinsicate matter,
whiche thei understande not: Those other, whiche
bee subjectes to them, whom soche insamples ought
to make afraied, have no power to remedie it:
and those Princes, that have ones loste their estates,
are no more able, and those which as yet kept them,
know not, nor wil not. Bicause thei will without
any disease rain by fortune, and not by their vertue:
for that in the worlde beyng but little vertue, thei
see fortune governeth all thynges. And thei will
have it to rule theim, not thei to rule it. And
to prove this that I have discoursed to bee true,
consider Almaine, in the whiche, bicause there is
many Princedomes, and common weales, there is moche
vertue, and all thesame, whiche in the present service
of warre is good, dependeth of the insamples of those
people: who beyng all gellious of their states,
fearing servitude, the which in other places is not
feared, thei all maintaine theim selves Lordes, and
honourable: this that I have saied, shall suffice
to shewe the occacions of the presente utilitie, accordyng
to my opinion: I cannot tell, whether it seeme
thesame unto you, or whether there be growen in you
any doubtyng.

COSIMO. None, but rather I understande all verie
well: onely I desire, tournyng to our principall
matter, to understande of you, how you would ordein
the horses with these battailes, and how many, and
how thei should be governed, and how armed.

[Sidenote: The armyng of horsemen; The weapons
that light horsmenne should have; The nombre of horsmen
requisite for a maine bataille of six thousand men;
The nombre of carrages that men of armes and light
horsmen ought to have.]

FABRICIO. You thinke peraventure, that I have
left it behinde: whereat doe not marvell, for
that I purpose for twoo causes, to speake therof little,
the one is, for that the strengthe, and the importaunce
of an armie, is the footemen, the other is, bicause
this part of service of warre, is lesse corrupted,
then thesame of footemen. For that though it
be not stronger then the old, yet it maie compare with
thesame, nevertheles ther hath been spoken a little
afore, of the maner of exercisyng them. And concernyng